Yin Liuxain
Not all Chinese citizens were supporters of the Communist Party or its rule over the nation. Yin Liuxain was one such case; once a model citizen, she came to oppose the government on moral, philosophical and personal grounds. Surviving the Great War and the collapse of human civilisation, she eventually became a revolutionary, a leader and finally a bandit in the post-nuclear wastes of her homeland. History Yin Liuxian was born to what could be called a middle-class family (in what was supposed to be a classless society) in 2045. Growing up in Shanghai she was, at least at first, a model citizen, attending mandatory clubs, taking part in state-sponsored community activities and so on. She also proved to be an adept student, scoring high marks in a number of subjects in school, particularly with regards to philosophy and literature. The only real hiccup during this period of her life came in her teen years. Yin somehow caught the eye of Du Cheng, the son of a local Communist Party official, who became determined to have her hand in marriage. Yin didn’t reciprocate his feelings, feeling that she wasn’t attracted to him at all, despite her parents’ enthusiastic urging for their union. It was not just his physical appearance that set her off (he was overweight and had poor hygiene) or his personality (a loudmouth who basically relied on his parents to keep him out of trouble) but something deeper that she was, at the time, unable to define. Eventually Du would simply give up the pursuit and move on to the next girl that caught his eye. Initially, Yin proved to be as adept a student in university. She enrolled in a philosophy and literature course with high expectations and dreams of being a writer. However, once the course moved beyond its opening semester she found that it was heavily canned, and consisted more of intense study of state-approved products that she found to be dry and lacking in substance. As these courses continued, she also found that ever increasingly her professors were expecting ‘canned’ answers that would reach the ‘right’ conclusions rather than actual discussion. Adding to her growing disquiet, Yin was beginning to realise something about herself. She found that she was attracted to other women, and had no interest at all in men. These thoughts were quietly terrifying; after all, to her mind they were not only unnatural, but expressing such feelings was illegal by state law. As much as there were women she met on campus that she wanted to engage with, she was afraid that they would not only be repulsed by her, but also report her to the authorities as a deviant. Instead, she tried her best to simply keep her head down and focus on her coursework. There were other challenges to her life during this period, ones that were less personal and more widespread. The state controlled media spread stories of fighting in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world, seeking to frame western nations as greedy exploiters seeking to hoard the world’s resources to themselves. However, it was not too hard to see the truth behind the scenes in Shanghai, where shortages had become commonplace. And as much as Yin wanted to follow the official line on stories of famines in the countryside being hoaxes dreamed up by subversives, she had to question what was the actual truth to such cases. Yin’s greatest breakthrough came in her third year of coursework. During an especially dry lecture (“the Soviet betrayal of pure Communisim”) she noticed that she was getting furtive glances from Wu Ling, another woman in her class. Taking a risk, she met with Wu after the class, allegedly so that they could compare their notes. What followed was an awkward hour of the pair of them fumbling through coded phrases until they both realised what the other was saying, and that they shared a mutual attraction that they had been afraid to show. The pair of them began a discrete relationship, one where any pubic displays of affection were strictly banned in order to preserve their secrecy. While tender, intimate and romantic, their relationship was also tinged with fear, not only of discovery, but also ever increasingly of the future. As Chinese state media trumpeted the ‘triumph’ of their forces in Alaska, both Yin and Wu began to worry that such an act would be the start of a terrible new war, with both having reasons now to fear their own government. While Yin did her best to remain a dutiful student, her work began to suffer as she found it harder to tow party lines. This shortcoming saw her bought before Noh Wan, one of her professors, who asked her a number of questions regarding her work, her beliefs and her relationship with Wu. Terrified that she’d been caught, Yin fumbled her answers before simply breaking down and admitting that she was not a dutiful citizen. To her surprise, Noh was pleased with this outcome. He explained to her that he was a member of a group who sought out others that held similar feelings to her, and desired to question the official party line on a number of matters. He offered to introduce them to her, an opportunity that she leaped at. What she found was a literal underground movement, operating out of a forgotten industrial basement. This group was composed of people like her who had chosen to question the government’s official line, while also choosing to indulge in forbidden foreign literature and media. Yin (and Wu after she was vetted) embraced this new group with a passion, finding that they were now able to express themselves in ways that they had been forbidden to in past. Both of them became avid consumers of banned media, finding that it was often far more enjoyable than the bland, state-sponsored material they had been raised on. Yin especially grew fond of American music, finding the diverse range of styles and messages to be engaging and enjoyable. Doctor Wan also introduced the pair to this groups’ other role, which was covert activism. Its members sought to discover the full truth of their world and learn just what the Communist government was hiding from them. Yin became something of an investigator herself, using her charm and skills at bold-faced lying to ferret out a number of ugly truths. Stories began to emerge of famines, shortages and riots, of bloodily suppressed rebellions and the army being given extraordinary powers to maintain order. The group would also distribute their own newsletters, put up posters, paint anti-government graffiti on walls and other acts of defiance. Despite all this, the time that Yin spent with Wu as a part of this movement would be the happiest of her life. She was with her love, the pair of them free to express their feelings rather than having to hide them from everyone. She was exploring a world of art, film, literature and music that she could have never imagined. And she felt like she could change the world. Instead, it all came crashing down. The American invasion of China in 2074 changed everything. All of a sudden, the war was no longer a distant thing that might never personally affect her; rather, it was now an immediate thing that was bearing down on them. The official Chinese media went into over-drive; unable to hide the invasion they tried to reinterpret it to their favour. Stories of ‘retrograde manoeuvres’, ‘tactical readjustment’ and crushing, chest-thumping victories filled the air. However, Yin was far from convinced. Her own investigations suggested that the truth was the opposite of what the media was reporting. The Americans were advancing through Chinese territory, using weapons that the People’s Liberation Army had no counters to. Furthermore, with their best forces still bogged down in Alaska, she reached the conclusion that Americans were here to stay. Despite her opposition to the Chinese government, Yin had no love for the Americans either. The last thing she wanted was for lives to be destroyed in the inevitable conflict, and she could not imagine that life in a city under American occupation would be any better than it was now. As American forces closed on Shanghai, the pair of them chose to leave the city. Neither Yin nor Wu wanted to be caught up in what was coming, a situation that Doctor Wan could fully understand. The pair of them were not the only ones seeking to leave the group, as there were others who were similarity afraid for the future. As American forces closed in on the city, the group began to quietly dissolve as its members tried to sneak out of the city. This situation was made even harder by the authorities trying to lock down the city to stop American infiltrators and agents, as well as Chinese deserters. While the flight from the city was harrowing and fraught with danger, Yin and Wu managed to make it past the authorities to the relative freedom of the countryside. Of course, this was still only a marginal improvement for the pair of them. Now they had to deal with the realities of life in rural China, such as mass starvation, collapsing infrastructure, chronic shortages of almost everything and the almost omnipresent People’s Liberation Army. An air of desperation permeated their travels, as they passed columns of grim-faced soldiers being sent to the frontlines of an unwinnable war. Travelling south-east to avoid the American forces, the pair of them eventually found refuge in an abandoned farm. While its owners had apparently fled (at least the pair of them hoped they had), it was remote and isolated enough for the pair of them to feel at least moderately secure. Yin did what she could to help protect them, including buying a couple of black-market firearms with supplies that she had hoarded in Shanghai. For the next few months they did their best to lie low as the People’s Republic disintegrated around them. And that was nothing compared to what was coming. While the farmstead was not hit during the Great War, its effects were obvious to the pair of fugitives. From where they were, they could see the mushroom clouds erupt across the landscape as human civilisation came crashing down. While she never knew for sure, Yin suspected that some of those explosions were caused by the Chinese government being willing to destroy their own people in order to kill the Americans occupying their land. First came the Fallout, and then the radiation storms that filled the skies with terrifying green clouds. And then after that came the winter, one that was more severe than any they had seen. At first, Yin’s plan was for the pair of them to dig in and try to live on their remaining supplies until winter broke. However, as the conditions worsened, it became clear that such would not be possible. As dangerous as it seemed, the pair of them would need to venture out from their shelter or else risk starving to death. Their early recon of the area was not promising. They found traces of violence and fighting, burned-out homes, dead bodies, bullet-ridden walls and so on that made it clear that while there were people alive, they also were not going to be receptive to outsiders. None the less, the pair of them managed to find some supplies, often hidden in out of the way places such as cellars or barns. The pair of them managed to survive, but it was a precarious situation. Knowing that scavenging alone would not keep the pair of them alive, Yin did her best to learn how to live off the land. As valuable as their limited ammunition was, she also knew that they couldn’t eat bullets, and as such, she taught herself to shoot. Venturing out again, the pair of them tried to find animals, either wild ones or domestic stock that had turned feral, to hunt. Many of those they encountered were sickly or allready showing signs of radiation-induced mutations, but none the less they were willing to risk eating the meat from such animals rather than starving. Soon the pair of them were just barely scraping by. Other problems manifested themselves beyond the threat of starvation or radiation poisoning. In mid-January of 2078, Wu fell ill after an accident while they were out hunting, leaving her stuck inside the farm. Yin now had to find medicines or else risk losing the love of her life, which meant venturing further afield than she had before. After an arduous trudge through the snow, she managed to reach the outskirts of a nearby village. However, what she found there shocked her. The village had been ransacked and burned, its population killed. The attackers had left after committing their atrocities, but not before leaving several bodies on very public display. Graffiti on the walls proclaimed that this was the work of somebody calling themselves “warlord Cheng.” Yin realised that what she was seeing here was a deliberate slaughter designed to intimidate others. None the less, she picked through the rubble for any supplies she could find, telling herself that the ghoulish task was necessary to aid the living by taking what the dead no longer needed. She made several more trips back and forward to the village over the next few days, gathering up more supplies and material from the ruins. On the fourth day she found something worrying as she was returning home. There were boot prints in the snow heading towards their farm, ones that were not hers. Moving carefully, she quietly approached the farm, worried about what she might find once she got there. Ahead of her were a trio of men, all armed and clad in tattered People’s Liberation Army uniforms. She had no idea who they were, but she suspected that they had malicious intent towards the farm and, by extension, her lover. Not hesitating for a moment while she still had the element of surprise, Yin sighted her rifle on one of them and fired. As he dropped, she snapped off another shot, killing the second. Several seconds of desperate fumbling saw her wound the third. Questioning him at gunpoint, she learned that they all worked for Warlord Cheng, who was a former PLA officer. The three of them had been conscripts before the great war, and remained in his service afterwards. The trio had been sent to find if there was anyone still living in the area, and to take any supplies that might have been left there by force. Realising that he would inform his leader of their location, Yin then executed him. It was only then that she realised that Wu had seen the whole thing. While her lover had been shaken by the experience, Yin explained how it was necessary to protect her, and of what she’d seen on her travels. Wu accepted her story, but at the same time seemed to be now afraid that the woman she loved was capable of such violence, even in self-defence. The tension between the pair of them would remain for some time to come, even after Wu recovered from her illness. When winter finally broke around mid-year (the pair of them had no accurate way to measure the passing of time beyond simply counting), both Yin and Wu began to venture out to gather supplies. By this point, Yin had picked the destroyed village clean, while also becoming aware that she was not the only party who was going over he ruins. The pair of them also needed to decide what would be their next move. Wu wanted to simply remain on the farm and maybe try to make a new living, while Yin was concerned about what might have happened during their months of seclusion. She knew that the People’s Republic no longer existed, but also knew that there were other living humans out there. In the end, they agreed on a compromise. The pair of them would launch expeditions into the countryside to learn more about their surroundings, but also would avoid entanglements with others. While Yin agreed to the plan, deep down she was wary that trouble would find them sooner or later. As much as she loved Wu, she also did not want to spend the rest of her life simply hiding from the world and hoping that it would pass them by. Yin’s predictions proved to be accurate. By what they figured was August of 2078, the ruined village had been taken over by a group of bandits, who had taken to terrorising the countryside. Soon Yin was encountering travellers on the roads who warned not only of them, but other forces at play. Worried about the implications, Yin took to launching her own quiet expeditions while Wu was at home, using various excuses to leave on her own. Taking a chance, Yin approached the ruined village, ambushing and dragging off one of the bandits while they slept. She interrogated the man, learning that they were in turn fleeing from Warlord Cheng who had carved himself an empire out of the ruins. By his information, Cheng ruled his territories with an iron fist, taking what he wanted and brutally supressing any opposition. Having learned what she could, Yin then killed her captive and moved on. Returning to the farm, Yin told Wu about what she had found. The result was a fight between the pair of them, with Wu furious that Yin would do something so risky and dangerous, while also being upset that she had killed again. Yin tried to justify her actions by claiming that she was merely trying to protect the pair of them and that she needed to know more about the threats they were facing. Eventually Yin was forced to back down, admitting that she had made a mistake. Instead of fighting, the pair of them attempted to build some semblance of a normal life. They began growing crops, while Yin supplemented their diets with game. However, Yin was also wary enough to build some defences around the farm, hoping that they would keep possible attackers at bay. Despite Wu’s optimism, she remained convinced that it would be a matter of when, not if, the farm was attacked again. The pair of them lived a (moderately) quiet life for six months until the outside world next intervened. In early 2079, a group of ragged men and women wandered onto the farm. While Yin was ready to fight them off, the leader of the group approached with open arms, stating that he just wanted to talk. The pair of them were cautious, but gave him a chance. He introduced himself as Ten Doh, the former leader of a community that had been conquered by Cheng. Eager to learn more about this warlord, Yin offered them shelter for the night. That evening, she questioned Ten, who proved to be more than willing to tell her all about their would-be conqueror. According to him, Chen was a former PLA officer who had survived the Great War. He now commended an army made up of a core of his old troops bolstered by a legion of poorly-trained, half-starved conscripts who were driven by fear and desperation. Ten and his group were guerrilla fighters who had been trying to resist Cheng’s army; however, their group had suffered severe losses forcing them to flee. Yin and Wu were divided on the matter. Yin saw Cheng as being a tyrant who would only add to the misery of the post-war world, and wanted to help get rid of him. Wu didn’t want any more fighting, and instead wanted to simply stay hidden in the hope that their farm remained undetected. Eventually Yin won out, pointing out that there was every chance that Cheng would come after the farm. Reluctantly, Wu agreed, with the pair of them joining Ten’s group. Over the next three months, they did what they could to rebuild. Ten used the farm as a base of operations as he, Yin and his other followers tried to gather resources and followers. Those they found helped to build up the farm, improving its fortifications while expanding on its facilities and living space. Soon the farm came to resemble an armed camp, a long way from the small haven it had been before the war. In mid 2079, Yin and Ten led their first attack on Cheng’s forces. The group struck one of Cheng’s supply caravans, ambushing and killing the guards. Taking what they could, they then fled back into the countryside and rendezvoused at the farm. The haul turned out to be a treasure trove of supplies, including food, medicines and ammunition that would be vital to their future plans. More to the point, the attack served as a successful proof of concept that they could fight back. Despite Wu’s objections, Yin became even more driven after the battle. To her eyes, Cheng was merely a continuation of the old Communist regime, a relic of the past who was oppressing the Chinese people in the name of his own personal glory. She wanted to see an end to him in the hope of building a better future out of the ashes of the old world. In many ways, she felt more empowered now to actually achieve change, doing through bullets what she never could through posters and underground literature. For the next two and a half years, Ten’s growing army struck at Cheng’s forces. At first they were simply raiding outposts or supply trains, but then stepped up to fill-scale attacks on his holdings. One by one, the villages he held fell to their liberators, freeing their people from Cheng’s iron grip. Yin remained at the forefront of the fighting, but also helped to integrate those that they were saving and aid in their rehabilitation. While she found herself caught up in revolutionary fervour, she also failed to notice how she and Wu were drifting further and further apart. In December of 2082, the revolutionaries attacked Cheng’s capitol, a village that he had fortified. By this point, the Warlord had lost more than half of his holdings, and his army was riddled with desertions. During the battle, Cheng’s forces found themselves at war not only with their enemies, but with their own people who took the chance to rise up against their oppressors. The result was that Ten’s forces had a surprisingly easy approach, meeting only isolated pockets of resistance. Cheng’s palace proved to be another matter, however. Once the local Communist Party headquarters, it had been turned into the Warlord’s private retreat and stuffed with his ill-gotten gains. Furthermore, it was defended by his most loyal men, many of who were PLA veterans. The result was a bloody, room-to-room battle as the revolutionaries hunted down Cheng and his men. Eventually Cheng was wounded and captured by Yin who found, to her surprise, that he was the same man who had tried to court her all those years ago. Secure in his victory, Ten declared himself the new leader of the village, promising to deliver freedom and safety without Cheng’s excesses. He immediately opened the warlord’s reserves to the hungry people, providing them with much-needed relief while also serving to illustrate the former ruler’s excesses. His second act was to order the execution of Cheng and his surviving officers, a move that Yin readily agreed to. This choice shocked Wu, who was disgusted at her lover’s seemingly bloodthirsty actions. Yin tried to argue for the necessity of it, but it quickly became clear that the pair had drifted too far apart. Wu opted to leave, returning to the farm (which had remained an outpost of Ten’s forces as the campaign moved) in the hope of resuming something of her peaceful life. Yin, on the other hand, was given a place at Ten’s right hand, charged with helping to educate the people that they now lead. Perhaps in order to make up for her loss, Yin threw herself into her new work. Rebuilding lives proved to be a challenge, especially given the combination of the Great War and the brutality of Cheng’s regime. She did her best to make education a priority, helping to impart skills and knowledge that would be helpful in supporting lives in this new world. At the same time, Yin hoped to preserve as much of the past as possible. For the next fourteen years, Ten’s community managed to survive. Things were not allways easy as the population faced numerous threats. Beyond disease and hunger, there was also the threat of radiation or attacks from mutated wildlife to deal with. Humans also proved to be a threat, as bandits, many of which were survivors of Cheng’s army, plagued the countryside. Efforts to exterminate them proved to be only partially successful, as they would often go to ground and melt back into the countryside. She also clashed with Ten and other members of his inner circle on multiple occasions over various matters. Yin believed in a flat, communal society that embraced the best aspects of socialism while rejecting the power structures that allowed it to become an instrument of heavy-handed control. Ten, on the other hand, felt that strong leadership was a necessary evil in such trying times in order to better protect the people. They also clashed on other matters. Several times Ten professed an attraction to her, and each time she rebutted him, making her feelings clear. In many was, this was as frustrating as their philosophical differences, as she felt he could never quite grasp the idea that she was not attracted to him or any other man. Of course, the fact that she remained single herself seemed to only encourage him more. She had made several attempts to reconcile with Wu through letters, but nothing had ever come of them as their communication became more infrequent. Eventually in 2086, she simply stopped answering. Ultimately, their own divisions would prove to be irrelevant in the face of greater threats. In 2096, reports reached Yin and Ten of a new Warlord, Lu Wang. Another PLA veteran, Wang had amassed a considerable force and was advancing towards their territories with an eye to conquest. Initial clashes showed that they were well armed and possessed considerable numbers, suggesting that an open field battle would not go well. After much debate, Ten chose to make a stand at the village itself, hoping to use their own fortifications and preparations to blunt Wang’s advantages. While he was expecting a bloody battle, what Wang offered was nothing short of an apocalypse. He possessed a salvaged American Fat Man launcher, as well as a number of Mini-Nuke shells for it. Not realising what they were up against, Ten’s forces were shocked as a chunk of their defences, along with a part of the village and numerous lives simply vanished into a nuclear fireball. Their well-organised defences immediately collapsed into blind panic as people fled a possible nuclear onslaught. Attempts by Ten and others to rally their men proved futile as Wang’s troops poured into the village. Realising the gravity of his situation, Ten ordered those that could to escape and save themselves in the hope of again fighting back as they had with Cheng. This time, however, there would be no fallback. While Yin was able to retreat, few others made it out alive. Ten was among those killed, cut down by Wang’s troops. Once again on her own, Yin chose to head back to the farm in the hope of finding shelter. What she discovered was that it had been long abandoned; a note left by Wu indicated that she’d chosen to move on with her life in the hope of finding something better. Alone, and having essentially lost everything, Yin considered her next move. Rather than opting to simply give in or move on, she instead chose to fight. For the next six years, Yin engaged in a one-woman war against Wang and his army. Initially she started with low-level harassing attacks, such as sniping at targets of opportunity or attacking supply trains, moves that did little damage but forced Wang to refocus his attention. As these proved more and more successful, she stepped up her efforts, using explosives and other such destructive means to kill his men and disrupt his activities. She also engaged in raids on his holdings, taking whatever she could; the most audacious of which saw her steal his supply of Mini-Nukes (Yin deliberately buried all but one of them in order to ensure that nobody would use them). Finally, in October 2102, she was able to lure him out. Working undercover, Yin planted information as to the whereabouts of the missing weapons, knowing that Wang would want them back. The story had them in a ruined village, the same one she had first explored twenty-five years ago. As she expected, he came to deal with the situation himself, rather than risk one of his lieutenants getting his hands on them and using them against him. However what he wasn’t expecting was that the shell had been armed. A well-placed shot detonated the mini-nuke, incinerating Wang and his guards. While that threat had ended, Yin felt that she could not rest. Instead, she took to wandering the countryside, usually disguised as an ordinary traveller or refugee. Her goals were twofold. The first was to learn more about the world, especially now that a generation had passed since the Great War. In that time, she had spent her life in a relatively small area and, now that the last threads to her past had been severed, she wanted to see more of it. The second was that, for all her victories, still knew that she had merely seen the tip of the iceberg. While the last remnants of the PLA were fading away, there were still plenty of others who would prey on the weak. Yin took to hinting down bandits and other threats and eliminating them wherever possible, using the same tactics that had served her so well in the past. Ambushes, sniping and traps were the tools of her trade, and she employed them to deadly effect against her targets. However, Yin also found that she could not do this forever. After several weeks of illness starting in 2107, she finally managed to track down a skilled doctor with functioning equipment for a diagnosis. The results were bad; Yin was suffering from terminal cancer, likely bought about from all the radiation she had been exposed to from the Great War and its fallout. Realising the finality of her situation, she used what little time she had left to make peace with herself and the world. Returning to her farm, her last months were spent in quiet labour and meditation, alternating with feverish writing. She alternated between her memoirs, philosophical tracts and a series of apologies to Wu and others she felt she had failed. Yin Liuxian died in her sleep in June of 2108. Not too long after her death, her body was buried by an unknown party, who also collected her works. They would be reprinted and redistributed over the years across the Chinese wastelands, and remained in circulation nearly two centuries after her death. Her reputation would also live on in other ways, as for years bandits would live in fear of the Witch of the Forest, said to be a vengeful spirit who preyed on the wicked. Personality At her heart, Yin Liuxian was anti-authoritarian. She learned quickly to reject her upbringing, coming to see Communism as being a failed experiment that had only served to keep power in the hands of a tiny minority. At the same time, she had no love for western Capitalism either. However, she did not shy away from leading a cause if it was one that she believed in, if only to help shape it into something that shared her own ideals. Her leadership in Ten Doh’s state was a good example, where she saw an opportunity for creating a truly classless society. Despite her idealism, Yin was a fierce fighter, and not above getting her hands dirty when she felt that such was needed. She despised bandits, warlords and others who preyed on the innocent, and showed them no mercy. To her, killing a bandit was a necessity to save the life of others; in her eyes, an innocent man might yet build a better future, but a bandit was somebody who had none. Yin was an avid reader, and also enjoyed movies and music. In her younger days she would gladly consume whatever media she could get through her underground colleagues, and enjoyed critical discussions that were free of official state guidelines. She also liked to write, even if many of her works remained unpublished as their content would not meet with state approval. In her last year, she returned to writing in order to best capture her experiences. The greatest love of her live was Wu Ling, who would also become her greatest regret. Despite the hardships they both suffered and their disagreements, she loved Wu with all her heart, and cared deeply for her. Much of her motivation came down to ensuring that Wu would be safe and not have to suffer, an obsession that ultimately would end up destroying their relationship. Yin would always regret driving Wu away, and even after they stopped talking she continued to hold her in her heart. Yin never took another lover, largely out of guilt over what she had done. Appearance During her university days, Yin Liuxian was a sharp-eyed young woman. While not particularly strong or athletic, she still was trim and fit, and did her best to keep in shape. She had brown eyes, and before the Great War, wore her hair long, albeit usually done up. Later on she would cut her hair short out of practicality. During her life, she accumulated more than her share of scars, but never did anything to hide them. Category:China Category:Deceased